The present invention relates to a disposal system for animal waste, and in particular to a disposal system adapted for use with pets primarily within the home, typically dogs and cats.
There have been many attempts over the years to develop a disposal system for animal waste that will simplify the process of manually collecting and disposing of pet animal wastes. Most pet owners will spend considerable time and effort training their pets to follow a routine or schedule for urination and defecation. Cats, for example, are trained to use a litter box and dogs are usually trained to wait until they are outdoors before they eliminate their waste. In each instance the pet owner is left with the task of collecting and disposing of the litter and its contents or of collecting and disposing of feces that have been deposited on the ground outside. Of course, during the initial training period, and occasionally thereafter, the pet owner is faced with cleaning up accidents in the living quarters, an unpleasant task at the best of times.
There have been a number of attempts at developing a pet toilet or commode in which the pet dog or cat will perform its elimination duties and which will be connected to a standard toilet so that the waste can be flushed into the municipal sewer system, thereby avoiding human participation. Some such devices have included automatic flushing mechanisms that are responsive to the presence and subsequent departure of the animal therefrom. However, such pet toilets have not been particularly successful, because they do not address the problem of the animal stepping in its own liquid or solid waste and then tracking such waste into the house as it leaves the toilet.
U.S. Pat. No. 3964437 to Brown discloses a dog or animal toilet that was designed for indoor or outdoor use and can be connected to a sewer. The toilet, however, lacks a flushing unit for flushing waste into the sewer. It has a flat floor and consequently the animal would likely step in its own liquid waste and would track such into the house when it leaves the toilet.
Canadian Patent No. 1086455 of Sep. 30, 1980 teaches a pet commode having upstanding walls and a lower floor bottom to which a drain is connected. There is a pivoting floor above the lower floor bottom which collects feces and urine and then detects when the animal has left the device. There is a spray tube which sprays upwardly towards the pivoting floor as it pivots and thus cleans urine and feces therefrom as such waste falls through the gaps between the pivoting floor slats. Should the animal decide to revisit the unit while the floor slats are pivoting it could injure itself if its legs become trapped between the slats. This same problem could arise if the household has more than one animal and the second animal enters the unit before the cleansing operation is complete. Furthermore, the cleansing action on the lower floor is not particularly efficient and waste could accumulate without being directed to the sewer. The system is quite complex, requiring many moving parts and would be prone to breakdown, making it expensive to repair.
U.S. Pat. No. 3734057 of May 22, 1973 to Lee and Tucker teaches a pet toilet that has an enclosure defining an entrance area and upstanding walls. A portion of the upper surface of the floor is inclined downwardly towards a drain and a flushing system is provided for flushing the unit after the animal has deposited its waste on the floor. Even though the floor is inclined somewhat to facilitate runoff of liquid waste and flushing water there is nothing to prevent the animal from stepping into the liquid waste before or while it flows towards the drain.
The present invention is intended to overcome the problems associated with the prior art, including the patents identified hereinabove. The present invention provides an animal waste system that includes a housing defining upstanding walls and a floor therewithin, the floor sloping downwardly from a forward entrance edge thereof towards a rear edge. The floor is provided with a plurality of generally parallel grooves in the upper surface thereof, primarily to collect liquid waste and to thereby minimize the amount of liquid waste that will accumulate on the floor upper surface itself. This in turn will minimize the possibility of the animal stepping in its own liquid waste before exiting the housing. A collection groove or trough extends transversely of the floor grooves at the rear edge of the floor and the floor grooves exit into the collection trough. The lower surface of the trough slopes downwardly to a drain opening which in turn has a drain pipe connected thereto. The drain pipe leads to a pump which is adapted to pump waste from the collection trough through the drain pipe to a disposal pipe that is connected to a sewer. For greater efficiency the pump may be provided with macerator blades or gears for macerating solid waste as it passes therethrough, making it easier for such waste to pass to the sewer.
The disposal system of the present invention improves on the prior art by providing a positive disposal mechanism in the form of the pump and by providing the floor grooves which reduce considerably the possibility of the animal tracking liquid waste out of the housing and into its master""s living area.